The European Space Agency ESA has unveiled the latest prototypes for a robotic rover that is due to land on Mars in 2015. The Mars robot's most important innovations concern its maneuverability: The rover has six wheels which can be rotated individually, allowing the robot to turn on the spot and move sideways like a crab. In addition the robot has a "wheel walking capability", which allows the robot to anchor itself with five of its wheels and inch each wheel forward one at a time, to crawl over an obstacle.

The novel hardware is complemented with a unique intelligent navigation system which enables the robot to take some decisions autonomously, avoiding the 20 minute delay for an instruction sent from Earth to arrive at Mars.